


edelweiss

by contrequirose



Series: garden in your soul [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autistic Caleb Widogast, Blumenthal is a little weird folks, Canon What Canon, Implied/Referenced Torture, Multi, blumenthal kids, canon typical warnings for Caleb's backstory, eodwulf has adhd, fey!caleb, i love astrid and eodwulf so much in this au, none of these kids are neurotypical, slightly weird format, spoilers for episode 49
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-28 00:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17776868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contrequirose/pseuds/contrequirose
Summary: Blumenthal was something else, once.There was power in this earth.And that - that changes a lot.snapshots from ages 8, 10, 12, 14, and 17.





	1. Frog Race

**Author's Note:**

> this is a love song to two characters that we know, in total, about three sentences about.  
> also to the fey.  
> hope you enjoy!

Bren is eight years old, and sometimes the world is terribly loud and exhausting, especially when he’s been made to sit through market day for hours upon hours (It’s been four hours and thirty-three minutes. He’s good at counting. Time is something that makes sense) upon hours without anything to do beyond sit under the wagon and pick at the grass and his pants and his scruffy shirt and wait for it to be over.

It’s much too loud out here. People are shouting, both in normal words and in Common, and there’s pots and pans and hammers clanging, and knives being sharpened, and wood being cut and animals making all sorts of noises that are digging little forks into his ears.

He hums to himself, tucked away under the cart, and continues to pick at his shirt.

He can just pick out Mutter’s voice over the din, wrapped up in some argument about the eggs she is selling and – corn? Something about corn.

Bren had helped gather eggs this week and he had helped wrap them in soft-cloths and load them into the crates. He likes helping out with the chickens. It’s mostly that they are soft, and don’t try and peck his hands too often, and they make cool noises.

He tried to replicate the noises after dinner one night and Vater had spilled a glass he laughed so hard.

It was funny.

From his spot under the cart, he can see other wagon wheels and carts and horse hooves and oxen hooves and people’s legs all milling about, and if he looks really hard he can stare through all the legs in the square and see the edges of the fields that press up against the town center and the endless fields of swaying grasses that fill them.

It’s not harvest season yet, so it’s not going to be a very Long market day. The last time it snowed had been weeks ago (43 days. He was counting.) and it was warmer now and the trees all had leaves again and Mutter let him go outside without the terrible, terrible itchy cloak that was too tight around his neck and made him flicker his fingers to try and dispel the feeling every time he wore it.

Spring is better than winter.

(He has been under the cart for one hour and three minutes, and at the market day for four hours and fifty-five minutes. It’s nice to count it out.)

He –

He can spot another kid, with a long blond braid down their back and brilliant blue eyes peering at him from a wagon across the way, and as soon as he notices them, they come dashing through the people in between carts and end up underneath his.

The kid – and he can tell that it’s Eodwulf, now, it’s always so hard to tell when people are far away who they are – is beaming ear to ear, mud scuffed over one cheek, and his hair is flying out of the braid at every junction.

“Bren! Bren! Bren!” Eodwulf half shouts, half whispers, voice caught between being Loud for fun and being Quiet for secrets.

“Hallo, Eodwulf,” he says quietly, a smile breaking over his face.

Eodwulf pokes him in the nose, and he blinks, staring at the flyaway hairs on the other boy’s head.

“Astrid found a frog! Do you want to come see? Mutter let me go to the creek to play because I was bored and kept bothering her with questions and then Astrid was already at the creek because her father was busy with the butcher’s and we we’re going to make potions? But then Astrid found a frog and it’s so cool Bren you have to come see – “Eodwulf pauses to take a breath and you interrupt him, finger flickering in familiar patterns in your lap.

“ _Ja_ , let me ask – “he gets out, before Eodwulf starts talking again.

“Yeah! And also do you think you can do the, the lighty thing under the water to make the rainbows again, because I think that would make more frogs come out and then we could have a frog race.” As he says “lighty thing,” his hands make fists and then flare out, a near perfect copy of what Bren does to make the globules (he learned that word in the book he read last week, and it had been so fun to say that he repeated it for hours).

Bren nods, then he nods again, and then he crawls out from under the wagon and tries to find his parents. Mutter is far away it seems, busy talking about – he strains his ears to listen over the background noise – talking about corn still? Weird. Vater, on the other hand, is only a few feet away from the wagon, leaning against a tower of empty crates and talking to Mr. Weber about cloth.

He walks over, on his tiptoes because that is the Best way to walk, no matter what anyone else says, and tugs on his father’s breeches. Vater looks down at him, and smiles in the slow way that he does when he’s not-mad and not-sad and probably-happy.

Bren stares at the buttons on his father’s shirt and asks, very carefully, “Can I go play in the creek with Astrid and Eodwulf?” He blinks, and adds, “There are frogs.”

Vater pats the top of his head, and he blinks again.

“ _Ja,_ of course. Be back at the wagon by dusk, alright?” His hand messes up his hair and he scrambles away, already tugging soft red hair back to where it had been before.

He signs thank you, the way that Mutter had taught him when words weren’t happening two years ago because all the noise he could make was occupied by trying to copy the noises that Frumpkin made.

Vater winks at him and returns to his conversation with Mr. Weber.

Bren scoots back under the cart and shoots a thumbs up to Eodwulf, who beams and starts to bolt through the legs of all the people and horses milling about, in the direction of the tree line of the creek in the distance. Bren follows, feet leaving footprints in the dust.

It's blessedly quiet at the creek, the din of the market far away, and Bren’s body calms down by increments as he and Eodwulf get closer.

They break through the bushes and onto the shore of the water, and he can see Astrid now, shoes and stockings tossed in a pile to the side, skirt hiked up and tied by her waist. She’s standing in the middle of the creek, crouching on a rock, and in front of her is a few frogs, dark green and slimy looking.

Astrid sees them and grins, hand coming up to wave.

“Bren! Eodwulf found you?” She asks, balancing precariously on the rock.

He toes off his shoes and takes off his socks and looking back to Astrid he nods.

Eodwulf is already in the creek by the time he gets his socks folded up, mud squishing between his toes.

He leaps, carefully, from rock to rock to reach the middle of the creek, trying not to slip and get his feet all wet. When he makes it out to the center, he crouches next to Astrid and gestures to the frogs.

“There were five earlier but two hopped away after Eodwulf slipped and splashed some water on them. Can you do the thing? The – the lights?” She makes a starburst with her hands, and Bren hums in the back of his throat and focuses.

He had first done this a couple of months ago, when he found a thrown-out book from the back of a trading cart at last year’s harvest close festival that still had a couple of readable pages in the back. It’s – he’s pretty sure that it’s magic, wizard magic even, not cleric magic like the tiny temple in town uses when someone gets really hurt and the apothecary can’t do anything.

He thinks about light, about the sun, blazing in the sky, and folds his fingers around the piece of wychwood that he keeps in his pocket into fists, thumb on the inside, and then snaps his fingers outwards and thinks about a sun coming down to rest in his bones.

He closed his eyes at some point.

When he opens them, Astrid has her hands clasped together in excitement and Eodwulf is copying the starburst his hands made, and there are four tiny balls of brilliant gold shedding stars onto the creek.

He grins, bright and gleaming, and tucks the chunk of wood back into his pocket.

Over the next couple of hours, he directs the lights under the water and watches tiny rainbows appear when Eodwulf splashes the water, and they do end up finding enough frogs to draw lines in the sandy beach and have a race. His frog won. His name is Wych, in honor of the lights, and when he lets him go to hide back in the creek, he feels kind of sad.

Not that sad though. It’s just a frog.

It’s getting darker now, and he’s kind of tired.

“We should go back to the market, probably,” he says, eyeing the sky. “The sun’s going to set in about an hour.”

Astrid frowns and kicks a stone on the ground.

“One day, when the sun goes down, I’m going to just keep playing all night and sleep all day!” She declares, arms thrust up in a victory pose.

Eodwulf crosses his arms and huffs, “If you sleep all day, when are you supposed to eat?”

Astrid considers this, and corrects herself, “Half the night, then.”

Bren laughs, a little bit, and grabs the hands of his two friends to head back to the market place.

Market day is never good, but maybe – maybe it’s okay, sometimes.


	2. currants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> one fall day, age ten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is written kind of weirdly, not going to lie, because I've never written fiction really before.  
> but i hope its enjoyable anyways!

Bren is ten years old, and it is the last market day before the harvest’s close festival in two weeks.

He’s old enough now (but not so old that he has to help sell stuff. He dreads the day that he’ll need to do that) that Mutter doesn’t make him wait around until his friends come find him – now, she just hands him a few coppers and sends him off to play.

He counts the copper in his palm – one, two, three – and walks over to where the food is being sold.

He buys a mug of cider, and then darts back to the cart to leave the remaining copper in the back, for the funds that he’s saving up to get a book or components or maybe even a wand – well. Probably not a wand, because he has only a small amount of copper and that is from saving all of his market day treat allowances from the past year.

They don’t have a lot of money to spare, he thinks, because Vater is always fussing with the account books and the fence had to be repaired earlier this year and the teeth on the plow will need to be replaced next year, and his shoes have a hole in the sole but Mutter just patched it with some waxed canvas and told him to be careful. Money isn’t used very often, anyways.

He should still have enough for a book or at least enough for some more wychwood, because he’s noticed that the more he tries to cast the spell the more the chunk he has now seems to crack. So, actually, he should probably prioritize buying that.

Or maybe there will be a really good book.

Time will tell.

Anyways, he ducks and twists through the people milling about in the square until he reaches the storefront of Eodwulf’s house – his parents were butchers, so they lived above the shop in town, and not out in the fields like his house and Astrid’s house was – and pushes into the shop, the little bell above the door ringing.

He can spot Eodwulf immediately – the boy was sitting on the floor near the front counter, writing down prices in careful penmanship, name in Zemnian on the left with the name in Common on the right.

There’s no one else in the shop, at the moment. He tries to hear whether Eodwulf’s parents are in the back, but there’s too much background noise coming from outside for him to tell.

He plops himself down on the floor next to Eodwulf, and tugs on the long braid of the other boy’s hair.

“Hey, Bren – I’m almost done!” He keeps writing, tongue pressed to his cheek in concentration.

Eodwulf has really good handwriting. His own, on the other hand, is practically unreadable to anyone but him. It’s hard to get his hands to stay still long enough to keep all the letters uniform and the spacing even, so he just sort of lets it be. He can read it, and Astrid and Eodwulf can read it, but that’s – that’s about it. Fraulein Schulz teaches them all arithmetic and writing and reading and Common during the winters, and she constantly is harping after him about his lettering.

He doesn’t really see what the problem is. Fraulein Schulz is kind of mean.

Eodwulf puts the chalk down and shakes his hands out, before jumping up and grabbing his hand. Bren laughs and lets himself be pulled upwards, and they rush out of the building –

“Bye Mutter! Bye Vater!” Eodwulf yells, (he guesses his parents were in the back after all) and they traipse down the entry stairs to the shop, running after each other in the streets of town.

It only takes a few minutes to reach Astrid’s wagon (Blumenthal is not very large), and Astrid starts jumping up and down as she sees them darting down the street.

In the distance, Bren can just spot her say something to her parents before she skips away and meets them in the street.

“Hallo, Bren, Hallo, Eodwulf – Did you hear?” Her voice is light with mirth.

 “Hear what?” he says, confusion darkening his brow.

“Mama and Papa said that there was a trader in town, who came early instead of for Harvest’s close. They said that he has sweets!”

Eodwulf’s eyes light up, and his head starts to swivel widely, as if the trader might be just out of sight on this road.

Astrid sighs, “Not here, Wulf, over by town hall.”

He’s – well he doesn’t have any money on him, and sweets aren’t usually his thing.

He’s still happy to trail after the other two as they start to pick their way through wagons, and back towards the main square. Bren’s family always sets up their wagon at the edge of the square facing north, and Eodwulf’s place is in the square as well, but facing south. Astrid’s family sets up farther away, less in the food-and-crops-and-drink area that dominates the square and more towards the cloth-and-wool-and-leather section that is the back streets of the city, where the general store is.

The town hall is on the west end of the square, opposite the temple to the Lawbearer.

When the three of the make it out of the crowd and closer to the front of the town hall, he can spot a small crowd of people gathered around a gnome standing on top of the wagon, a pile of strange objects and packages in the back.

Eodwulf and Astrid push their way to the front, and the gnomish person eyes them and grins.

“Well, kiddos, what will it be? I have sweets, I have toys, I have spices – “

Astrid cuts them off and pulls out a tiny handful of copper wrapped in some spare-cloth from her pocket.

“What sweets do you have?” she asks, eyeing the packages hungrily.

“Well, for a charming young lady like yourself- “Astrid scoffs, a tiny bit, at that, and Bren and Wulf glance at each other in bemusement, “- I have maple sugar candies, and lemon candied peel, and some special hard candy all the way from Rexxentrum that’s flavored like currant… any of those sound good?”

“How much is the hard candy?” Eodwulf steps up, and continues, “The currant flavored one, I mean.”

The trader is speaking in Common, but by this point the three of you have been learning Common for so long that it’s as easy to speak as Zemnian. The accent still comes through, but it’s understandable. It’s also pretty obvious, language aside, that they’re not from Blumenthal. No one from here would have a coin purse out on market day. Sure, everyone has copper for snacks and such, but the real point of market day is the deals. Something given, something gained.

The gnome eyes Eodwulf – his hair plaited in a tight braid down his back, his clothes much nicer than Bren and Astrid’s, his shoes a shiny black – and checks something in a book attached with a strip of leather to his side.

“1 silver for thirty pieces.”

Eodwulf’s face falls, and with a frown, he steps back.

Astrid nudges him, and whispers “How much do you have?”

He sighs.“Six copper. I saved from last time.”

“Hand it to me.”

He does so, and Astrid pours a pile of ten copper into the trader’s waiting palm. They smile and toss a bag of the candy to Astrid.

“Pleasure doing business, kids.”

They move away from the cart after that, trailing out of the busy and noisy square and pausing to sit on the steps of the apothecary, closed for market day.

Astrid tears open the bag and hands five pieces over to Eodwulf, who immediately starts gobbling them up like they’ll disappear any second.

She glances over to Bren and shakes the bag. “Do you want any, Bren?”

“I didn’t help pay…” he replies, mind thinking back to the two copper he left stowed in the cart.

Eodwulf pauses sucking for a moment, “Doesn’t matter. Do you want some?”

He – maybe just one? He holds up a finger.

Astrid hands it to him a second later, and it’s a really cool piece of candy. It’s been molded to look like a four-leaf clover, and as he pops it in his mouth, he can taste the sourness and sweetness of it.

He signs thank you with the candy still in his mouth, and Astrid flashes him a grin.

Eodwulf finishes the candy Astrid gave him, and he sits against the steps, fingers playing with the end of his braid.

Wulf’s hair is much longer than his, because he hates how it feels against his neck and so Mutter shaves it for him each month, and much longer than Astrid’s, because she keeps her hair short to avoid it snagging in any of the looms or wheels in her house and also because she keeps cutting it herself when it gets too long.

“When we grow up,” Wulf says, eyes bright, “we should get married and start a candy shop so we can have candy all the time.”

Bren stares. Astrid blinks.

She sides eyes Eodwulf, and counters, “Can three people even get married? I’m not objecting, but I think there’s a couple of issues, here.”

Bren thinks to himself for a moment, and chimes in with, “ _Ja_ , and we don’t know how to make candy.”

Eodwulf rolls his eyes.

“But we can learn, can’t we? And I don’t see why three people can’t get married, why would that be an issue. If we were living together, above the shop, and we needed to combine money, and run the store, then we would be married. No problem.” He states, arms flung wide and nearly hitting Astrid in the nose.

“Watch it, Wulf, geez.” She mutters, pushing his hands away.

Bren laughs to himself, and pats Eodwulf on the knee.

“Sure, Wulf. Candy shop it is.”

He flutters his fingers in his lap, and speaks again.

“I learned how to do something new, if you two want to see?”

He’s always digging through books to try and find new spells. Eodwulf and Astrid are both able to cast the light spell, now, and the three of them can make little light shows when its dark out which is pretty cool – but he thinks he’s the first one to figure this particular trick out.

Astrid peers at him, and nods excitedly. Eodwulf mirrors the motion.

Bren smiles, and concentrates. He thinks about warmth, and then heat, and then burning, like his namesake, the hearth of the home, and conjures a flame that flickers on the edges of his fingers. He pulls, for a second, with his mind, and – he shoots a small gust of flame into the air above them, traveling a few feet before it dissipates above their heads.

Everything is quiet, for a second.

Bren blows a little bit of smoke off his fingers.

“Oh, heck yeah!” Eodwulf claps his hands together and rockets upwards, dragging Bren with him to dance in the street.

Astrid is smiling, so large that her cheeks are stretching, and Eodwulf is dancing with him, and –

He loves his friends very, very much.

Almost as much as he loves magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will go up tomorrow, probably.  
> i lied about the every other day thing im too impatient for that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> midsummer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> matt really did create a whole intricate date system  
> he's so cool

Bren is twelve years old, and he is being shook awake by his Mutter, who – as he peels his eyes open and rubs the sleepiness out of them – is smiling at him, and placing a mug full of cider on his bedside table.

“ _Was-_ what’s happening? It’s only,” he thinks for a moment, and continues, confusedly, “four o’clock?”

He sits upright and feels nervousness start to rush in.

“Is something wrong? Are the animals sick? Is Vater alright? What’s-“ he gets out.

Mutter shakes her head and laughs, and speaks softly, “Nothing’s wrong, _liebling._ Think. Why would I be waking you up before sunrise? What day is it?”

He thinks to himself, and then, with a gasp – it’s the twentieth. Of Brussendar. It’s.

It’s Midsummer.

Oh. Oh – OH!

Mutter laughs at the look on his face and she kisses his cheek and turns out of his room, tapping the pile of clothes on his dresser with a knowing look on her face.

He bolts out of bed and pulls on a set of his nicer clothes – no rips, soft enough that he doesn’t feel like his skin is crawling to wear them (not like the formal clothes he has to wear for the Lawbearer holy days that everyone in town attends to keep up appearances. Those clothes are awful. He’s going to burn them one day.) and covered in careful embroidery that Astrid had done to practice last winter. The pants have climbing vines creeping up the side hems, and the shirt has cornflowers blossoming over the edge and the ends of the sleeves.

Festival day clothes.

He brushes a hand through his hair – longer than it used to be, now that he’s figured out how to do a smaller braid that keeps it from bothering him. Eodwulf braids it for him when he’s over, but since it’s summer they’ve all been very, very busy. But if it’s Elvendawn –

Well. It’s Elvendawn.

He leaves his hair down, for now, pulls on the clothes, and rushes down the stairs of his attic room and into the main room of their house.

Vater is sitting at the table, hands buttoning the waistcoat he’s wearing over his nicer set of clothes. Mutter is over by the stove, flipping some pancakes (and that’s a delight, something reserved for Important Days) and Bren scoots into the kitchen, sitting down at the table and traces the woodwork that decorates the sides.

“Morning, Vater!”

Vater glances over and smiles.

“Morning, son. Leaving the hair to Eodwulf?”

“ _Ja_? If that’s alright, he’s much better at it than I am and I want it to be nice.”

“Of course, of course.” He finishes up his buttons and stands, again, to hug Mutter from behind.

She laughs, brilliantly, and serves up the pancakes.

They’re delicious, of course.

Its 4:30 when they finish breakfast and leave the house, and then leave the fields, and then are on the path through the meadows to Astrid’s house.

The flickering light of candles lit in the distance is just starting to become visible, and Bren can just start to hear the hooves and noises of the sheep and goats that populate the fields surrounding her house.

He can just now spot the candles going out, and in a few moments Astrid is running up to join them, her parents right behind. He walks with her a few paces ahead of their parents, and together they keep walking.

It’s five, now, and they’re here.

The three of their families – his, Astrid’s, Eodwulf’s – are the only ones that come here to pay respects to the Archeart. Other’s might be doing this same thing all around town, but they can’t gather in any large groups because his parents has impressed upon him that this is illegal since the day he was old enough to keep secrets.

Everyone in town goes to Civilization’s Dawn at the Lawbearer temple, and pays lip service to worshipping her. But no one actually does, to his knowledge. Blumenthal was something else, once upon a time when the trees covered all the fields and the empire wasn’t even a twinkle in the eyes of man. It’s a history that he can spot in the pointed ears of some of his friends, in the way Astrid’s eyes reflect the tiniest bit of light when its dark out, and the way that speaking Sylvan feels like expressing something that’s living in his blood. Everyone in town speaks Zemnian, and everyone in town speaks Sylvan, and everyone in town speaks Common. Trying to buy anything on Market day’s usually requires a mash of the three languages that has outsiders pulling their hair out in confusion.

Sylvan sounds like the water flowing over rocks in the creek. He loves it.

They sit around the rock pile, and Bren watches light start to creep over as Eodwulf braids his hair.

The formation itself is something that’s been here for ages, if the weathering on it is to be believed, and it probably some remnant from an earthquake, or meteor strike, or arcane disaster – whatever it is, it’s a pile of dark stone that glitters with flecks and chunks of white and azure quartz, that start to glisten as the sun rises.

They watch in silence, and as the sun clears the horizon it shines a beam that lights up the quartz so that the entire formation seems like its glowing, brilliantly, and he almost has to shade his eyes – and then the sun inches up, and the glow dissipates.

Vater stands, then, and pours some wine at the base of the rocks. The rest, he splits between the rest of everyone, and they all take a sip.

Bren really, really hates the taste of wine, but right now it tastes like how magic does – like something big is waiting on the horizon.

They are not elves. Blumenthal is not an elven town. It never was an elven town.

But a long time ago, there was power in the earth.

A long time ago, deals were brokered on this ground.

And a long time ago, the power left and the people remained.

The people still remember.

Not elves, but – something _other_.

They sit there for an hour longer, humming and whispering songs in Sylvan, songs about creation, songs about beauty – Astrid shows off her newest attempts at knitting, Eodwulf places a carved figurine of a elk at the base of the rocks, Bren demonstrates the fire cantrip – and as the sun rises higher, they pack their things and walk back home.

There’s still chores to be done, and practicing that needs doing, and a home to keep.

But even so – he spends the rest of the day working on his Sylvan, and practicing his magic, and hoping -

He heard a rumor that mages from Rexxentrum were going to come to Harvest’s close, after all, and to him – well, that’s a sign that he needs to keep practicing his magic.

He can’t learn all the magic in the world if he never has a teacher, after all.

In his room, sequestered away from the workings of his parents downstairs, Eodwulf casts mage hand and lifts up a mug.

In her room, in the attic space of her house, Astrid rubs a bit of fleece between her fingers, and creates a barrage of drum beats that echo through her house and cause her parents no small bit of alarm.

The mages do not come at this Harvest’s close. He is disappointed, but -

But for now, its Elvendawn, and Bren is whispering Sylvan hymns to himself, and everything is – everything is bright and golden.

 

The mages come at Harvest’s close when he is newly fourteen, and six months later there is a letter for him, for Astrid, for Eodwulf, and his parents –

They are so, so proud of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters left!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> last days of childhood

Bren is fourteen years old, and he turns fifteen tomorrow, and in two weeks the mages are coming to take him and Astrid and Eodwulf to the Soltryce Academy.

His parents are so proud, and the town is so proud, and he can barely keep his hands still at all these days, he’s so excited about it.

The three of them have barely left each other’s sides since they got the letters, even going to the lengths of sleeping at each other’s houses.

Right now, they are sitting on the sand of the creek, feet in the water and shoes tossed to the side, and Bren is counting each time that the leaves sway over their heads in the breeze.

“Do you think –“ Astrid starts, biting her lip.

Eodwulf scrunches his toes in the mud.

“Yeah?” He says.

“What if – what if we aren’t good enough.”

Bren shakes his head.

“They wouldn’t have chosen us if they hadn’t seen potential, _ja?_ It is not unusual for them to take none, and to take three – they must have seen something.” He states, fingers twisting furrows into the sand beneath his palms.

“I know, but. We aren’t – we aren’t rich city kids, with money for uniforms and components and wands and spell scrolls, we’re just kids from a tiny town in the middle of the Zemni fields, and I – I just worry, is all.”

Astrid’s voice trails off at the end, and Eodwulf looks up in alarm.

“Hey, hey-“ he takes her hand, “It’s going to be amazing, and wonderful, and we’re going to learn magic and come home and show the whole town what we can do.”

Bren thinks for a moment, and then chimes in, “And if it sucks, we can just leave.”

Eodwulf continues, “Run away. Start a new life.”

“Sell all our components and become circus performers.”

“Move to Tal Do’rei and become hermits.”

“Become pirates.”

“Disappear into the forest to become elves –“ Eodwulf’s voice is cut off by Astrid slapping him on the arm, and all three of them descend into giggles.

Astrid leans back and stares at the clouds sweeping across the sky.

“Seriously, though.”

She taps her fingers against her knee.

“If it isn’t – if it isn’t good. Like what happened with Fraulein Schulz?”

Fraulein Schulz had been their teacher, four winters ago, and she had been run out of the village after their parents discovered that she had been hurting one of the little kids. He never – he didn’t need details, but it hadn’t been great. She was mean to everyone – she had rapped his knuckles for how bad his handwriting was back then, and he still had tiny silvery scars across them – but she had really hurt that kid.

“I don’t think that would happen. It’s a governmental school, they would have better – better oversight.” Eodwulf rubs his hands together, and with a snap, he conjures a few lights that float around over the creek.

“I – you’re probably right.” Astrid frowns and picks at the sand.

Bren thinks for a moment, and slowly says, “If you’re worried – we could pick a word? Like, a ‘everything is bad and we need to get out’ word.”

“Like if someone rings the bell in town an extra time to let people know the tax reapers are coming.”

Bren snaps his fingers. “Exactly like that.”

Astrid’s brow furrows, and she thinks to herself for a second.

“That – that could work? Sorry, I know nothing’s going to happen and it’s going to be great, I’m just nervous, I think. I’m just being dumb.”

Eodwulf taps her on the shoulder and shakes his head.

“You’re not being dumb. Being anxious about something isn’t dumb. How about jenga?”

Bren and Astrid blink, and share a glance. It’s a ‘what the fuck’, sort of glance.

Bren eyes Eodwulf. “What does that even mean.”

“I-“ he pauses to think for a second, “-have no idea I just heard one of the traders mention it a few months ago. The ones from Deastock? But anyways. Maybe uh… maybe _edelweiss?_ ”

Astrid leans in to Eodwulf. “Like the flower?”

“Yeah. No one’s going to know what it means since it only grows here, and we’ll know that it’s coming from us.”

“Sounds good, Wulf.” Astrid swipes a chunk of hair from where it had fallen onto her forehead and sighs. “Thanks. I know I’m just being paranoid.”

Bren clasps his fingers against the chunk of wychwood in his pocket and sets a pair of lights to circle around her head.

“It’s going to be amazing. For the empire, and for home, and for us.” His voice is thick with emotion and conviction, and he’s been trying harder to keep his reactions less – loud, but Astrid and Eodwulf don’t care. He flaps his hands in his lap, and digs his toes into the mud, and when Astrid’s arm wraps around his shoulders, he smiles.

“Yeah.” Eodwulf’s hand pats Astrid’s back, and he stands up from the beach.

“We should get going, it’s getting dark.” He snaps another light into existence, and it joins the others.

Astrid stands up, and offers a hand to Bren.

“Love you guys.” She says, a small smile spreading across her face. “And hey – two weeks left!”

Bren smiles, and stands up, and the three of them spend the whole walk to Eodwulf’s house on predictions of what it’s going to be like, and what from home they are going to miss.

The sun sets on footsteps left in the sand by the creek.

There are thirteen days, eight hours, and twenty-nine minutes until the mages come.

He’s been counting.

* * *

 

He is going to make his family proud.

(he does not question the will of the empire, of his teacher, of his own motivations, until it is so very very very late - )

(the word _edelweiss_ does not cross his lips)

(his screams do, though)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to me watching the talks machina for episode 18, this is now even more au than before because apparently Astrid, Eodwulf, and Caleb didn't really know each other before the academy.
> 
> a person can dream, tho.  
> next chapter is the last of this fic.


	5. feychild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Astrid is seventeen.  
> She is a murderer.  
> And she is alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for character death, implied/referenced torture, and the general awfulness that come's along with Caleb's backstory. Also, there are going to be sequels to this, so look out for that in the future.

Astrid is seventeen the day her parents die.

She’s been floating since she heard her parents talk about revolution, talk about treason, and known what she had to do. Her parents had never been anything but cautiously judgmental about the empire, like any good family in Blumenthal, sure, they honored an illegal god but so did half of all the citizens, she never thought they would betray her like this – but they had, they are traitors, and she knows what happens to traitors because she has done it so many times at this point and felt how it feels from her earliest lessons, when she still needed to understand and it had hurt but it had been for the best -

Focus, Astrid.

She killed her parents. She watched them die. She felt nothing but justice.

She watched as Eodwulf killed his. She didn’t feel guilt.

She watched Bren –

She watched him refuse to use his flames (what is he doing, they are traitors, why is he -)  and she listened to his parents scream as Ikithon set the house alight.

(His parents had loved her like their own daughter, they had given her yule gifts and sung for her on her birthday, and they were traitors, and they deserved to die.)

She watched as Ikithon held onto Bren’s bandaged arm, and traced a circle in the air, and disappeared.

Ikithon was back minutes later.

Bren – Bren was not.

Ikithon dusts a bit of ash off his robes.

The bottoms – the bottoms have blood on them.

They return to the academy.

Ikithon sat across from them in the carriage, arms folded in front of him.

She watched him open his mouth, and she listened to him speak.

“Bren failed,” and his eyes were cold and hard. “He failed. You two did not.”

“Well done, students.”

“And I am sorry, but you know what the price of failure is.”

She had felt something in her crack.

Bren failed in his duty as an agent of the empire.

She knows exactly what price he has paid.

That night –

That night, she wrapped herself around Eodwulf in their bed that was too large for two people, and he looked at her with something screaming behind his eyes, and she leaned in and she whispered –

“He’s dead. And our parents –“

“I know, Astrid. We did what we had to do.”

“Did we though? This isn’t – why would he kill Bren. Why would Bren refuse, he knew what they did –“

“Astrid.”

Astrid swallowed, and focused.

Something – something isn’t right. She can’t tell what it is, but there’s something loose on the edges of her thoughts, like a sliver of black currant candy stuck between her teeth (and gods she can’t think about that right now, maybe Bren failed but did that mean that he had to die, gods above, his face) and she frowns. What about his face – _he was screaming, he was crying, she was frozen she could do nothing but watch_  -

What.

That’s not – that’s not right.

She tugs.

She thinks.

“Eodwulf…”

“ _Ja_ , _liebling?_ ”

“Do you remember – when Fraulein Schulz was run out of town. And she tried to charm you? Which wasn’t very smart, she grew up here, she should have realized –“

“When she tried to make me give her the money out of the till? Yeah, it was like a – fuzziness, almost. But I shook it off after a second, she wasn’t very successful.”

“Something’s wrong. I – there’s something I’m not remembering right, I think.”

“Do you – I can’t heal, Astrid. I’m an arcanist, I’m not a cleric.”

“I know, I know. I just-“

She tried to pull on the loose thread fluttering in her thoughts, and it slipped from her grasp.

She tried again.

And again.

And again.

And agai-

_Her mother's voice. She is sitting in front of the hearth, and her mother is weaving, and she is playing with a figurine that she knows was a gift from Eodwulf’s father._

_“Astrid.”_

_She looks up, and her mother is staring at her._

_“Would you like to know a secret?”_

_She nods._

_“We were something great once, child. We had magics flowing in our blood, and magic flowing through the earth, and magic in the air we breathed. The earth sang, Astrid.”_

_Her mother is speaking Sylvan. It’s not a language she ever remembers learning._

_She has known it for as long as she can remember._

_“And child, that magic runs through you as well. It lives in your blood.”_

_Her mother pokes her in the forehead, and she giggles._

_Gods, she is so young._

_“And the magic never forgets.”_

_Her hands rest on her shoulders, and mother’s face starts dissolving into mist._

_“Magic never forgets, child. Remember that. Remember this.”_

_The fire goes out._

_“You are magic. You were from us, once. And we grant you this.”_

_It is so, so dark –_

_“Do you want to remember? It will be hard.”_

_She cannot see._

_(Bren is dead. Something is wrong. She needs to know.)_

_“What will you give?”_

_She thinks. She has nothing but herself._

_“This is not just. We do not need much. But we need – something.”_

_She has herself._

_Her voice sounds different in the dark._

_She hasn’t spoken Sylvan in so long._

_“I –“ her voice cracks. She swallows, and continues. “What is this worth.”_

_“Child, to you, this is worth everything. You can tell something is wrong. We can offer a glimpse, if you need it.”_

_She nods._

_She remembers –_

_Bren sets the house alight, and his face is as cold as hers, until the screams start and his eyes spark with something, something different, something other, and he – Bren falls to his knees, and screams, and tries to claw at the door, and Ikithon grabs him and Bren falls silent, unconscious, and he teleports away, and she and Wulf are panicking, and this is going all wrong why would he react like that they were traitors, they were traitors, weren’t they – and Ikithon comes back, and he sees them, and he traces golden lines in the air, and she – she forgets, and Bren fails, and Ikithon informs them that he was killed for his failure._

_She stares into the darkness._

_“I.”_

_She’s crying._

_If – if Ikithon changed that._

_Did he change anything else._

_She needs to know._

_“I don’t have much to give.”_

_“We need – you know who we are. You have always known us, and we have always loved you. But if you are willing – and only if you are willing. We are not like your teacher. We take what is freely given, and offer gifts in return.”_

_“I don’t understand what that means.”_

_“You will. We can grant you new magic. Not the magic you have learned under pain. Magic in exchange for remembrance. Remember us, child, and you will remember yourself.”_

_She thinks about magic._

_She thinks about Elvendawn._

_She thinks about light shining in crystals, and tries not to think of the ones that had found their homes in Bren’s arms._

_She knows what this is._

_“That’s illegal.”_

_“Child, what has been done to you and your kin is against any law that is just.”_

_“What has been done to me?”_

_“You know, on some level, child. Memories missing. Motivations that don’t make sense. Scars that don’t match the stories attached to them.”_

_She thinks –_

_There are whip marks on Eodwulf’s back that he wouldn’t talk about, and that she doesn’t remember him getting._

_Bren had burned with fever for days after the crystals, and she had been so terrified, and he didn’t remember an issue after, and she didn’t remember enough to press._

_There had been – Claudia, a halfling from Felderwin who had been so carelessly cruel at the academy but she was disobedient, she wouldn’t follow the rules - and she had disappeared, and no one had even thought about her._

_She has a long, thick scar on her arm. Not the crystal scars. Something else. She doesn’t remember getting it._

_She didn’t question it._

_She’s been so forgetful, hasn’t she._

_She thinks about her parents._

_She killed them._

_They had loved her._

_She killed them._

_They were traitors._

_She killed them_

_They were against the empire._

_Weren’t they?_

_“Do you want to take that chance?”_

_She said that out loud._

_She thinks of Eodwulf, who is still alive, and she thinks of Bren, who is._

_Who is not._

_“I don’t. I – if it isn’t worth it.”_

_“We would not lie to you, child. You know this language. You know who we are. We do not lie.”_

_She thinks._

_The moon._

_The stars._

_Brilliant, brilliant light._

_Thread passing like water through her fingers as she wove in her house._

_The sound of the hymns her mother would hum under her breath while shearing sheep._

_Ikithon’s hand on her lower back as he presented them at the Assembly meeting, and the panic that had been sleeping in her mind for the past two years._

_“Something given, and something gained. I give you my service.”_

_Her voice wavers, and she can feel tears start to create a track down her cheeks._

_She swallows._

_“And I would like my memories, please.”_

_“Of course, Child.”_

_There is a pause._

_“We are sorry.”_

_She –_

_It’s like when the sun shone on the rocks and the crystals glowed on midsummer._

_She’s sure that if she still had crystals in her, she would be blinding._

_And she remembers._

_Oh._

_Claudia was killed for refusing to torture a dissident._

_Eodwulf was whipped for being disrespectful when he swore at Ikithon when he was demonstrating torture methods._

_Bren had nearly died from the crystals. He told her that they ached, constantly, and she brought it to Ikithon, and he had –_

_Bren didn’t -_

_This is –_

_She killed –_

_Wulf killed –_

_Bren killed –_

_Ikithon did – he – all that pain, all that misery, crystals under their fucking skin, he was -_

_Oh scheisse._

_“We will grant you enough power to remove the webs from Eodwulf’s mind. And you will need to run, child. We can grant you that.”_

_She’s shaking, in this space._

_Tears stream down her face._

_She takes a few gasping breaths._

_Her fingers twist into knots in her lap._

_Her voice, when she speaks, is much stronger then how she feels._

_“Archeart – please, -“_

Back in the bed.

“-trid, hey, come on _liebling,_ what’s wrong, why are you crying, I don’t –“

She’s crying here, too.

She remembers.

Gods, she remembers.

She can feel energy pooling in her veins.

She reaches out and grabs Wulf’s hands.

She whispers, “ _Eidelweiss.”_

“Astrid.” His eyes roam over her face, and his face crumples.

“Seriously? We can’t leave, we’re about to graduate, we didn’t come this far to fail like Bren did –“ his voice cuts off with a sob, and she puts her hands to his temple.

She is not used to this energy, but she tries anyway, and focuses on the memories that stink of rot.

She feels like there is lightning in her bones.

She takes her hands away.

Eodwulf is staring.

A tear starts to make its way down his face.

She grabs his hands.

“ _Eidelweiss._ ”

He nods.

And the room around them crackles with green light, and they swirl into darkness.

They land in a field of clover, and there’s a lake behind them and the sound of birds calling, and it feels so familiar, it lights up something in her eyes, and she blinks –

The energy collects around them again, and its dizzying and she is straining at the seams to control it, and she doesn’t know where they're going, they just need to get away, please, Archeart, they need to leave –

The world solidifies into somewhere else.

She’s not sure where, or when.

But it’s not Rexxentrum, and it’s not Blumenthal, and it’s…

The water behind them gleams with silver topped waves.

It’s warm.

The Menagerie Coast, then.

That’s nice.

She clenches her hand around the crescent moon symbol that’s around her neck now (she doesn’t know where it came from but she can guess), and lets the energy flood out of her bones.

Her parents are dead. Her best friends’ parents are dead.

Bren is dead.

But Eodwulf is alive.

She’s alive.

And they are free.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapters posted every other day.


End file.
